In this short article, I would like to show you how to put an item up for sale. Of course, as you understand, the auction is not a disinterested thing and you have to pay for trading on it. Therefore, here I would like to analyze how to minimize eBay commission fees and further show examples of listing goods on eBay without any paid services.
First of all, let's break down what eBay's fees are:
- Fee for listing a lot for sale. That is, it turns out that you just have to pay for placing a lot. But not everything is so sad. You can list 50 items on eBay for free every month. This is quite enough at the beginning of trading, I still do not go beyond this limit. If you sell more than 50 items per month, then eBay will charge you $0.30 per item for listing the fifty-first and subsequent items.
- Commission fees in case of successful sale. If the product is on sale, then the platform eBay charges you 10% of its value. Therefore, be sure to take this into account when calculating the price of the lot.
- Fees charged by Paypal for processing the payment. They make up 3.9%. Also consider this figure when pricing.
- Fees for additional eBay services such as highlighting an item in search, showing in featured items, extending an auction beyond 10 days, adding more than 12 photos to a gallery, setting reserve prices when bidding on an auction.
In fact, if you exhibit up to 50 products per month and do not use additional paid services, then you pay nothing for displaying the product, so if you don’t sell anything, then you don’t lose anything (except, of course, the cost of purchasing goods, if you have any). And in the event of a sale, you are charged 13.9% of its value. So just increase the price of the item by that percentage. Moreover, 13.9% is deducted from the sum of the cost of the goods and the cost of delivery, so it doesn’t matter whether you include the cost of delivery in the price of the goods and set the option “Free shipping” or set the cost of the goods and the cost of delivery separately.
Lot listing instructions.
Now that you are familiar with the terms of trade, let's look at two examples of listing on eBay. In the first case, the video tutorial will show you how to put up a pair of shoes for sale. This example is artificially modeled to simply show the process. In the second case, there will be a more modern and detailed text instruction for the sale of tar soap. This is a real example of what is being sold from Russia in large quantities. And remember, the main thing is to start trying it yourself, because you can read the instructions endlessly, but true experience comes only when you try to do everything yourself. Each situation is unique and somewhere you will have to think with your own head, but I think after viewing the examples given, you will have fewer questions. The main thing is not to be afraid and try.
Selling on eBay - Example 1. We expose shoes (video tutorial).
Sale on eBay - Example 2. We exhibit tar soap.
Now let's look at how to list a product on eBay using the example of selling Russian tar soap.
English is set in my account settings. If you have Russian set, then some menu items will be, respectively, in Russian. However, not all of the sales interface is translated from English, so it is much more convenient to use English. In addition, if you intend to trade with foreigners, it is better to immediately get used to the terminology in the original language. All description below will be based on the English-language interface.
Select in the top menu of the site "My eBay" - "Selling" (My eBay - Sales)
A form opens in which you need to specify the name of the product. The name of the product should, if possible, be written in the way that a potential visitor will search for it through the search bar, so feel free to use keywords. In addition, since there can be a Russian-speaking buyer living abroad for such a product as Russian soap (as a rule, emigrants from the Russian Federation and the CIS countries), I duplicate the name of the product in Russian. In this case, I am selling 2 bars of soap in one lot, so I write the following text in the title: “Russian Organic Birch Tar Soap 2 PCS | Tar soap - 2 bars. After specifying the name of the product, click "Get started":
You will see a form for selecting a product category. Select the desired category. If you find it difficult to choose, you can find similar products from other sellers and see what category they are in. In our case with soap, this is "Bar Soaps":
After selecting a category, click the "Continue" button and get to the next step, "Create your listing", where we will need to make a detailed description of the product, including the price and terms of delivery and return. There are two options here, either work with this listing creation form, or switch to a simplified form, for which you need to click on the “Switch to quick listing tool” link. If you want, you can try the simplified form, but personally I always work with the extended form, so we will not switch anywhere. Let's start filling out the form in order:
Title is the title that users will see in search results. We filled it out in the previous step, but if you want, you can edit it here.
Condition- state - select New (well, I would still sell used soap -;))
Add photos- a very important step, here we add product photos. Without photos, selling anything in the 21st century is generally meaningless, so try to prepare high-quality and clear photos of your product in good resolution in advance. Personally, after photographing, I edit images in Gimp or Photoshop: I remove the background and make the image brighter and more contrasting. In total, you can add up to 12 photos without additional paid fees. Here are the images I added:
UPS- barcode - I never bother with this parameter, select "Does not apply"
brand- brand, brand - you can select from the list or enter your own. Naturally, in this case there is no such thing in the list, so we manually drive in "JSC "Neva Cosmetics", Saint-Petersburg":
Size type- type, size - they offer a choice of Regular (Normal), Sample Size (Test sample) and Travel Size (Compact, for a trip). Choose "Regular".
Formulation- shape - select "Bar" (bar).
Country, Region of Manufacture- country and region of the manufacturer - put "Russian Federation"
After all our body movements, I got the following picture:
Next comes the "Details" section, where we can give a detailed description of the product. The better the description, the more likely it is that the product will be found and that it will be attractive to the buyer. I filled it out like this:
If you have been shopping at this auction for more than a year, then you know that many sellers have very beautiful descriptions and even images. This is possible if you switch to the "HTML" fill form. Of course, knowledge of html is necessary, and images must be uploaded to some kind of image hosting and links to them should be provided here. In a separate article, I will talk about how to make a beautiful description with minimal knowledge of html so that anyone can figure it out. While, in principle, a simple textual description is sufficient, many are limited only to it.
Go to the section of the cost of goods and delivery "Choose a format and price"
On eBay, you can either put an item up for auction or put a fixed price, just like in a regular online store. I prefer to trade for a fixed price "Fixed Price". Next, set the price of the item. I recommend to pay attention to the option " Allow buyers to send you their Best Offers for your consideration» (Allow buyers to send you the best offers for your consideration). For example, you put up a product for $ 10, and the buyer wants to buy cheaper, he can send you an offer to sell the product, for example, for $ 8, and you will already consider it and, if you want, then sell the product on the proposed terms. In this case, I do not set this option, but often it can be useful.
In field " duration» we can specify the duration of the advertisement. When placing a product for free, you can put up to 30 days - that is, your ad will hang for no more than 30 days, and then if no one buys the product, the ad will be removed, but it can be re-placed. The “Good ‘Till Cancelled” option (post an ad indefinitely until the lot is withdrawn by you) is paid, so I do not recommend choosing it.
Below you are offered to donate some of the money from the sale to a fund. Since I am greedy, so far I have not donated anything to anyone and always put “I do not wish to donate at this time”
We go to the “Select how you "ll be paid” section - and indicate the Paypal account where we want to receive money and where they will take a refund from us if there are any problems with the order. We also check the box “Require immediate payment when buyer uses Buy it Now" (Require immediate payment when the buyer uses the "Buy Now" button).
Go to the delivery section "Add shipping details".
On eBay, shipping is divided into domestic and international. Moreover, since there is no separate Russian site eBay, for us the delivery will always be international. And the one that is internal is actually a delivery across the United States (well, or across the UK, Germany, Australia, if your account was created on these sites, but I have not met such users). In other words, if you are registered on ebay.com, then you are considered an American user and therefore you are required to separately indicate delivery to the United States (U.S. Shipping) and separately delivery to other countries (International Shipping), including, by the way, Russia. Therefore, in our case, we simply indicate the cost of international delivery here and there. If you want to include the shipping cost in the price of the item and offer free shipping, then in the U.S. Shipping set the option "Free Shipping", and in International Shipping just set 0, as in the picture below:
Handing time– order processing time is the time from the moment the buyer purchases the goods until you send it to eBay with a tracking number. If you do not work anywhere and plan to devote your full working time to trading on eBay, then you can bet 1 day, but if you are busy with something else, then bet up to 3 days, like me. But in any case, it is better not to bet for more than 3 days, this may repel the buyer.
Here you can also change the item location (“Item location”) by clicking on the “Change location” button. Here you need to specify where the lot will be sent from. If you send it yourself - indicate your location. You can just specify your city, you can only specify the country. If this field is not changed, then the auction will put a fragment of the address that you specified in your account.
The rest of the fields can be left blank.
If you did everything right, you should see the inscription "Your fees so far: $0.00" This will mean that you do not need to pay fees for listing the goods.
We press “Continue” and we see a message that we “saved” 30 cents, since 50 products have not been exhibited this month yet. Below we can see the choice to "Post Our Product", "Preview", or "Edit" again if something is not to our liking.
We press "Preview" and if everything is good, then we place it. You can also save your listing as a template so that when you post the same or similar product in the future, you do not have to fill out all the fields. Click - "Save this listing as a template and use it to sell similar items"
After that, you should see the inscription "Congratulations!" and text stating that you posted your first item.
Now, after placing the goods, you can again go to your personal account in the "Selling" menu and look at your lot. There you will see the number of views, how many days until the end of the ad placement and other data:
If someone buys your product, it will be displayed in the section Sold and you will need to send it and provide the buyer with shipping information. A separate article will be written about this.
If no one buys the product in 30 days, it will be displayed in the section Unsold and if you wish, you can set it again by clicking on the "Relist" button.
In the following articles, I will go into detail on how to ship a product, how to provide shipping information, how to create an html template for product descriptions, and much more.
That's all, I wish you successful trading!
If all your accounts are already prepared and you are morally ready to start selling goods on the largest marketplace in the world, then this article is for you. After reading this article, you will be able to independently put up for sale your first product. And immediately after the content of the article, you will find a video tutorial on the process of putting goods up for sale from a time-tested intermediary, it is possible that after watching the video tutorial you will not have to read the article further.
Summary:
The content of this video tutorial fully corresponds to the actual process of listing goods for sale, with one exception - at the very end of the listing process, you must enter the address of your PayPal wallet! More on this below. The video tutorial shows the advanced editor of the ad for the sale of goods, and the article focuses on a simplified editor that successfully copes with its task.
Starting the listing process and choosing a category
Displaying goods on eBay the easiest way to start is from the page that is shown at the last step of editing the user account and adding permission to automatically withdraw money from the account PayPal under the buyer protection program eBay. This page looks like this:
The link to it should be saved in your bookmarks, unless of course you have read and followed my recommendations. On this page click on the button List your item. If you do not have a link to this page, use this link, which I found for you in the help system eBay. You can also find a link to the beginning of the display of goods for any product you purchased, unless of course you want to sell the item you bought on eBay or is it similar to the one you want to sell.
You will be redirected to the first step of adding a product. You need to enter an indicative title for your sale ad, in most cases a short product name will suffice. After entering, click the Get started button
You will be presented with the most appropriate categories for that title. Use the checkbox toggle to select a product category. The further success of your trade depends on your choice, as an erroneously chosen category will not allow a sufficient number of potential buyers to see your product in the search results.
If the search results did not give a suitable result, you can select a product category manually, continue listing the product by clicking on the link or the Browse categories tab and going down the category tree, find the one suitable for your product.
Regardless of the method that suits you, after selecting a category, click on the Continue button.
If you want to sell a fairly common product, you can try to find its ready-made description. Use enter the name of the product, its model in the line and click the Search button. You may be shown the most relevant products from this category. If you want to sell one of the ones offered, select it and click on the Sell your button. When choosing such a product, you will no longer need to add its main characteristics to the product description; several stock photos of the product can also be automatically added. We will consider the option of placing a product for sale when there is no description of an identical product and compose it ourselves. Click the Continue with your listing button.
Choose how to create a product description. Fundamentally, these methods differ only in a more detailed (rather just more colorful) division into sections of information and the number of photos that can be added in this product description editor. We will write the description in a simpler way, in a form called Keep it simple. Click the Go button in the column with the name of this form.
Creating a listing for selling an item on eBay
In the open listing creation form, all added information is divided into 5 semantic sections. In the first section, enter the name of the ad. Be sure to indicate in what condition the product is being sold: new - “Brand new”; new in the box - “New in Box” or “NIB”; used - "USED"; used in perfect condition - “USED Viry Nice”.
Also in the header of the product ad creation form there is a link to go to the advanced editor and a Save for later link to save the current ad to drafts.
In the second section of this form, you can add up to 4 photos. The minimum number of photos is 1, but it is possible without photos if the lot itself does not require it; maximum - up to 12 photos, which can be added in the advanced form of creating a lot. For $0.35 you can choose an additional service Gallery Plus, which will allow potential buyers to see enlarged photos of the product even in the search results.
In the third part of the simplified form for creating a lot description, you must specify the technical characteristics of the product and give its detailed description. In this example, screenshots of the process of putting up a lens for sale are used, so the headings of the technical characteristics columns are full of various expressions from the photo world, and in addition to the standard Brand and Model, there are specific ones: maximum aperture, focal length, lens type - fisheye, standard, macro, and so on. All these indicators need to be filled in, because the more truthful information is provided on your product, the fewer questions and misunderstandings the buyer has and the greater the likelihood of a purchase.
At the bottom of the third part of the form there is a text editor for creating a lot description. Describe the condition of the product, give a truthful assessment of its work, and also indicate the special conditions for payment, return and delivery of the goods, if any. If you will not send goods to the countries of Africa, South America, please also inform us about it.
The fourth section of the form regulates the financial relationship between the seller and the buyer, it must:
- specify the method of sale: auction, sale at a fixed price, auction with a fixed price, format for selling goods with a bid Make Offer and auction with a reserve price are available only in the advanced ad creation editor;
- enter prices for selected sales methods;
- add available shipping methods and their cost;
- determine whether it is necessary to hide the announcement of the sale of goods for residents of countries in which there is no eBay regional site;
- specify the order processing time in WORKING days;
- using the “checkmark” switch, mark the possibility of returning the product corresponding to the description if for some reason it did not suit the buyer.
It is worth noting that in the “simplified” ad editor on the site ebay.com there are only American delivery services such as , FedEx, UPS, that is, you will not be able to choose any other delivery method and, accordingly, in the list of delivery methods there will be no Russian Post and even Russian Post. Adding standard international shipping methods such as economic shipping, standard shipping, expedited shipping only possible in the advanced editor. To go to the advanced editor, follow the link Switch to form with more choices, which is located in the header of this editor. In the advanced editor, scroll the page to the appropriate section and specify the city in which the product is located. After that, it will be possible to add standard delivery methods to the list of used ones. More details about this are described in the video, which is presented at the beginning of the article.
In the fifth section, you just need to specify the address PayPal, to which the buyer's payment should be sent. It is also possible to block the acceptance of bids from buyers who do not have a linked account. PayPal. This free feature allows you to avoid unnecessary hassles when the winning bidder refuses to buy because he cannot pay via PayPal.
This completes the process of creating a listing, it remains to find out the amount of the fee for putting up a lot for sale and carefully check the information you provided. When exhibiting the first 50 lots during a calendar month, it is worth striving to reduce the cost of putting the goods up for sale to zero. After checking the information in the ad, click on the Save and preview button.
On the next page, you will be shown the created ad, as it will look in the search results and when viewing the ad in a separate browser tab. If everything suits you in the created ad, click the Continue button.
You will be shown a message notifying you that the item is up for sale. After that you can go to My eBay section or tell your friends in Facebook that you are selling goods on eBay!
From the following article you will learn what to do after the goods have been paid by the buyer: how to properly pack and send the goods, what to do with the track number that you receive in the mail?
As you probably already know, before you put your item up for sale, you need to register on the eBay online auction and get the status of "Seller".
First of all, think over all the details in detail. Never act randomly. Before listing your item, weigh the pros and cons. Don't forget, there are millions of experienced Sellers on eBay, and if you make a mistake, people will buy from them rather than you. Look through similar listings, study prices, competition, buyers' habits, read this book, forums, and only then you can start.
It is best to start with shopping, because. no one will deal with a Seller who has a zero rating. If you feel ready to list your item for sale, click on the "Sell" button at the top of any auction page.
Choose the Selling Format
At the initial stage, you must choose the auction format - this is a set of specific rules by which the sale of goods will be carried out. You choose between Auction Style (the lot will be auctioned) or Fixed Price (the lot is sold for a fixed price, no bargaining). If you have selected an auction, you can choose from: Standard Auction, Reserved Price Auction, Dutch Auction, Private Auction. You will learn more about each of them from the article: Types of auctions.
Choose a category (Category)
By putting up a product for auction, you should already have a clear idea of in which category to place your lot. The easiest way to determine this is to do a mini-research and determine which of the categories / subcategories has the most similar products to yours. If there is more than one such category, you can place your item in two subcategories at once for a small fee. But you should not place a lot in a category that is clearly unsuitable for it - such a lot will be withdrawn from the auction, and your account may be blocked for a systematic violation of the rules for placing a lot.
Creating an effective title and description
Effective headline- one of the key factors contributing to the successful sale of goods. Please note that most Buyers will find your item through an auction search engine, so your title should contain as many keywords as possible. You can learn a lot of useful things by entering keywords into the auction search engine and looking at competitors' lots. Be sure to make sure that the grammar of your title is correct and does not contain errors, otherwise it simply will not be found. Also, experienced users often use the special paid service “eBay Keywords”, which shows your mini-banner to a potential buyer if he entered at least one of your paid keywords in the search bar (payment is made per click).
HTML. If you are familiar with the basics of HTML, you are invited to create a lot in the built-in HTML editor. You can also do the HTML on your computer and then just paste the code into the window. If you are planning to start a serious business on sales, then the basics of HTML will definitely not interfere with you.
Starting price and product images
Enter the Start Price. This is not as easy a task as it seems. If you start trading with a symbolic amount, then there is always the possibility that the final price will not suit you. And if you overestimate it, your lot simply may not be bought. Try to balance the starting price and make it optimal to start trading. It’s not bad if you provide an opportunity for buyers to buy goods immediately without bargaining, using the paid option.
Determine the duration of the auction. It can be 1, 3, 5, 7 and 10 days. Many sellers try to calculate the duration of the auction in such a way that their end falls on the weekend, when the activity of the Buyers is the highest. Also, don't forget about the time difference. If your target audience is Americans, then it makes no sense to list the lot in the early Moscow morning, because. the difference is on average -10 hours and in the USA at this time it is deep night. It is optimal to place the lot when the target audience has the middle of the day.
Determine the country where the product is located.
And finally, you have to choose which of the additional paid options you would like to use. And this is highlighting the title in bold, an image next to the title in the list of auctions, underlining the title, etc. Many of them are sometimes quite helpful. Check them all out and choose the ones you want.
More information about the cost of additional services eBay auction, such as eBay Picture Services, eBay Seller Tools, Listing Upgrade etc., as well as the cost of services for eBay Motors, on eBay Stores and on eBay Real Estate You can find out directly on the eBay website, in the "help seller" section.
The full version of the article is available in the e-book:
It always seemed to me that eBay is the perfect way to get rid of stale goods. It has the largest audience among online markets - over 110 million active users. They are, of course, spoiled by Chinese prices, but if I lowered the price tag on my T-shirts to cost or a little lower, then I got a competitive offer. My experience of selling abroad gave me confidence: I sent packages to the UK and France several times using ASOS Marketplace.
eBay conditions suited me: free placement of up to 50 items per month, the market takes about 10% of the sale (depending on the category). Signing up for a seller account was as simple as entering a name, verifying a phone number, and entering a PayPal account. After that, I got to the welcome page, where I was offered to start posting products.
This process was simple but tedious. eBay asks you to specify even the dimensions and weight of the packaged goods. The end of the ridiculous procedure was crowned with complete disappointment.
"Unfortunately, you won't be able to finish this product card because you've reached the limit on the number of products you can list in this category," the screen read. In the reference information, it was only mentioned in passing about the limits - who would have thought that the limit would be zero positions. That is, I can't sell a single thing, and the only way to fix this is to call the international office of eBay, and strictly during business hours.
Hoping that on the other side of the wire everything would be automated for sure and I would have to say my e-mail at most, I waited for the evening and called the number indicated.
But the manager answered me, and all the advice he gave me was to enter a pin code when creating a seller account. And I've done it successfully for a long time. After three minutes of communication, 300 rubles in my account ended.
And then I started writing. I wrote about my problem and a day later I received a response in which I was again asked to enter a pin code. Then I wrote an even longer letter, where I attached screenshots, and only after that it started to work. They sent me a list of documents for identification. This list is not posted anywhere on the website.
It included: a copy of the driver's license or any other document with a photograph, an agreement with the forwarding service, if any, a certificate from the bank on the existence of an account and cards linked to it, a billing address and the expiration date of the card, and if the address is on the card ( billing address, we have this address of registration) does not match the address indicated on eBay and planned for use in trade, then it must be confirmed by sending a copy of the utility bill.
However, it must be acknowledged
what the service staff tried
help me. Every time I received a long and clearly not a template letter
All documents must be sent by fax with a cover page indicating the mail and ID associated with the eBay account, after which they are reviewed within 7-10 days.
I sent all the documents through the FaxZero.com service and waited. Seven days later, I received a message in which it was written that they could not satisfy the request, because they did not understand my situation with the addresses.
I sent the following fax, in which on the cover page I described the difference between the address of registration and the address of residence in Russia, and attached to all other documents a scan of the page with the registration from the Russian passport.
It's been 10 days and I still haven't received a response. I wrote myself. It turned out that they somehow touched my second request. After a couple of hours of searching, they wrote that they found it, and now they again need 7-10 days to review it.
After another 10 days, without receiving a response, I wrote again myself. I was told that my request was sent to a special department that handles complex applications, and now they have a lot of work, so I will have to wait a little longer. It's been a month and a half since my first attempt to become an eBay seller.
Over the following weeks, I contacted them several more times: they lost my faxes again, then asked me to confirm the address again, then informed me about the workload of their department. Therefore, when I finally received the long-awaited letter with the satisfaction of my request, it was already joyful, funny, and sad. The whole process took me three months.
I must admit, however, that the service staff always sincerely tried to help me. Each time I received a long and clearly not a template letter. They thanked me several times for being an eBay user for two years and three months, praised my choice of last purchase, and generally showed miracles of tact. I can’t be angry at them, although I understand that it would be better if they spent time not writing letters, but debugging processes.
Of the promised limit of 50 items, I was able to use only 20. The system promised that this number would increase over time and with the growth of my sales. But from time to time I still have to go through the identification confirmation procedure again. In the meantime, in the first week of listing on eBay, we have several dozen views on each item - and not a single sale. One thing pleases: during this time I have already sold some of the leftovers on the ASOS Marketplace.
The eBay online auction is a platform where people from all over the world sell and buy various goods. At the same time, it is an opportunity to earn. Since 2014, it has also appeared on Russian sellers, which means it's time to get acquainted with what and how to sell on eBay.
What to consider before selling on eBay
To begin with, the process of selling goods on eBay is a serious matter and should be approached responsibly.
There are two types of sellers on eBay: people who want to sell unwanted items and people who are professionally selling goods on the Internet. This article is equally useful to both, since the essence of the process does not change. The difference is that in the second case, you will have to put in more effort. But the profit will be much higher.
Initially, the site works in English, but for convenience, you can switch to Russian. The language change button is on the top right. Before you start, be sure to read the rules of the site. You need to know and follow them without fail if you expect to successfully sell on eBay.
If you violate the rules - whether intentionally or out of ignorance - your account will be blocked, and after that you will no longer sell anything.
Registration
The first step is to create an account. The registration process is simple and is unlikely to cause you any difficulties. But a few aspects deserve special attention.
First of all, think carefully about the login. When the buyer will correspond with you, the first thing he will pay attention to is your name. And if you specify a set of unreadable characters, you are unlikely to inspire confidence in a potential buyer.
Also, please note that eBay has registered buyers from all over the world, so do not choose anything as a login that could cause negative associations with a representative of a particular country.
The best option is to enter your real name. But if for some reason you do not want to do this, choose a representative and official nickname that will inspire confidence in buyers.
If you suddenly want to change your login, you can do this no more than once every 30 days. In addition, you should not get carried away if your store has regular customers - in this case, they may not find you when they need it.
It is desirable to add a photo to the profile, people tend to trust such accounts, because it becomes clear that there is a real person on the other side of the screen. The photo should be moderately official, although a smile on it does not hurt.
Be sure to enter a work email that you have constant access to. It is better that you receive notifications of new letters. The fact is that you will receive notifications in the mail about users who are interested in your product, about new messages on the site and about new questions about the product. The speed of your responses determines whether a person buys from you or from another seller. And if a competitor responds faster than you, then you will lose a buyer.
The phone number that you enter on the site must also be working and active. It is needed to restore access to your account if you forget your password or your account is hacked by scammers.
Finally, you need to get a PayPal account. Buyers can pay with a Visa card. In theory, sellers also have this opportunity, but in practice it is very inconvenient to use the card, there are problems with withdrawing funds, and so on. All serious eBay sellers use PayPal exclusively.
Features of selling on eBay
So, you have registered on eBay. How to start selling items on eBay?
Before placing items for sale, it is recommended that you first place a few orders yourself. Why is this needed?
The fact is that by buying real goods, you prove to the site administration that you are not a scammer. You show that you are an ordinary person who wants to sell your item on eBay and has already gained experience buying on the site. Without this, the account may even be blocked on suspicion of fraud. In addition, with these purchases you will gain your first rating and receive positive feedback from sellers, thereby increasing the confidence of future buyers. It is unlikely that anyone will want to buy from a seller with a zero rating and no reviews.
In order not to spend a lot of money, order a few inexpensive, but the lots you need, and then proceed to design your own store.
What do you need to know before you start selling?
- Carefully study the available product categories and choose the most suitable for your product.
- Study the prices of competitors for similar products and set an adequate price.
- When specifying the characteristics, indicate everything as accurately and correctly as possible. Pay attention to the features that distinguish your product from analogues.
- Be sure to write down all the shortcomings and defects. If the buyer finds a defect after receipt, which was not reported in the description, he is fully entitled to a refund.
- Post high-quality photos that show the product, preferably from different angles.
- Include all costs in the price, including commission and delivery, so that there are no incomprehensible moments later.
- In the name of the product, write keywords and the most important characteristics.
When compiling an ad, look at other offers of similar products and draw up your lot based on them. Remember that you need to describe everything reliably, indicating the advantages and disadvantages. eBay cares about all participants in the transaction, so it carefully monitors that sellers and buyers fulfill the conditions in good faith. If you keep silent about the defects of the product or describe it inaccurately, and the buyer is ultimately dissatisfied, there is a risk that the administration will block your account. At a minimum, you will have to return the money for it, plus the buyer may leave you a negative review, which will negatively affect your reputation.
Listing process
We've covered all the nuances you need to consider before selling on eBay. Let's proceed directly to how to display the goods for sale.
So, to place a product, click "Sell" or "Sales" at the top of the screen. First of all, enter the title of the future announcement - if anything, then you can change it. Write a short product name. At this stage, the main thing is to be clear what you are selling. Do not forget that the title is written in English. In the title, it is best to indicate the most key information: the name of the product, its condition and category.
Based on the title you enter, you will be prompted to select the most appropriate product categories. You need to put the one that suits the most - it depends on how many users will see your ad.
If the search did not give you the category you need, find it manually. To do this, go to the "Browse categories" tab and select a category yourself.
The next step is the product description. First, choose how to create the description - simple or complex. They differ in that in a complex way there are more sections with information and more photos that can be attached. After choosing a method, proceed to the description itself.
Select the condition of the item below. There are four options available:
- "brand new" - new;
- "new in box" - new in the box;
- "used" - used;
- "used very nice" - used, but in perfect condition.
Next, add a photo. The minimum quantity is 1, the limit is 12. It is better to include as many photos as possible showing the product from different angles so that the person has a clear idea of what he is buying. Try to take photos yourself, and do not insert photos of the same goods, then it will immediately be clear that you are selling a real thing.
The next step is to fill in the technical specifications. This part is very specific to each product, so there are no universal tips here. Truthfully fill in all the information, and if you do not know some technical characteristics, look in ads with the same goods. If that doesn't work for you, it's best to just leave the fields blank.
Then enter a text description. It can be copied from another ad that sells the same product, or you can write it yourself. If you copy text, reread it carefully so that false or inaccurate information does not creep in. But it is still recommended to compose the text yourself.
This text should contain a description of the work and condition of the goods, as well as the terms of delivery and return. Here write about how you accept payment, to which countries you do not ship the goods (if any), whether the buyer will receive a tracking number and other similar nuances.
Finally, at the last stage, you are required to enter all the information regarding the financial relationship of the seller and the buyer, namely:
- sale type;
- price;
- delivery method;
- order processing time;
- the possibility of a return.
Let's take a closer look at the first point. What are we talking about?
The fact is that there are several types of trade on eBay. The first type is selling at a fixed price. The scheme is as follows: you expose the product, determine the price, if the buyer agrees with the price, he clicks "buy", after which the product is considered sold.
The second type is an auction. The seller who puts the goods up for auction determines only the minimum price and duration of the auction. During this time, everyone offers their price. The only condition is that this price must be higher than the last offered. At the end of the term, the lot goes to the user who offered the highest price.
The third type is the reverse auction. In another way, this type of sales is called "make offer". Unlike a regular auction, users do not offer a higher price, but on the contrary, knock it down. But the winner is not the one who offers the lowest price, but the one whose conditions the seller accepts.
Choose the most suitable option for yourself. After that, mark the cost. If you are selling at a fixed price, then set it. For an auction, set a floor price, and for a "make offer" set the size you want, but be prepared to haggle.
To select a delivery method, you need to switch to the advanced version of the ad, even if before that you filled out everything in the simplified one. The fact is that only American postal services are available in the simplified editor.
To switch, click "Switch to form with more choices" - this link is located at the very top of the form. After switching, scroll down again, reach the choice of the delivery method and indicate the city from which the goods will be sent. After that, you will have all the available delivery methods, from which choose the most suitable one.
